I had both of the changes I mentioned in the original message happen Monday, so perhaps an update is not the only trigger - or perhaps I just notice it more after an update because then a reboot is normally necessary and the password requirement is very noticeable.

I don't believe there is anything inherent in WU to change power settings. I recommend that you set a reminder to check the power settings regularly. You may be able to identify some process that is running which changes the settings.

Power settings change after WIndows 7 update

Originally Posted by JoeP517

I don't believe there is anything inherent in WU to change power settings. I recommend that you set a reminder to check the power settings regularly. You may be able to identify some process that is running which changes the settings.

Joe

I set up 2 or 3 new PCs with W7 each month. All the PCs must have never sleep/hibernate. Every one gets the power settings reset after the first updates so I believe the Windows Update does change the settings.

Although it doesn't solve your immediate problem, you could recover from changes in Power settings by runningpowercfg -export <filename>
in a Command Prompt window to back up your settings, and later importing the required settings to override any unwanted change.